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Carolyn Usher: Fracking -- Governor ignores elephant in room

Posted:
05/11/2013 01:00:00 AM MDT

"If fracking is safe, then what about nosebleeds, headaches and neurological issues?" Gov. John Hickenlooper's response was that those stories are anecdotal and would require further investigation. "Anecdotal" and "further study" are infuriating terms for someone with neurological damage that could have been avoided.

I question Gov. Hickenlooper's "attempt to be fair witness" given his long working relationship with oil and gas. When asked about declining property values, he said "Yes there is some decline in the beginning, but that is found to taper off over time." Don't most people buy a home hoping for appreciation? Was this meant to be comforting?

He often pointed to mineral rights and that we must be vigilant in our purchase, but what about other rights, like the health of those exposed to the fracking toxins? Is it not our responsibility to amend these agreements in the face of emerging issues?

He said he's found the two quickest ways out of poverty are employment and education. So his answer to poverty is fracking, the quick and dirty way out (not to mention short term) solution to a complicated problem? He continually cited improvements, like the coming of a meter that can be dropped down the shaft to measure methane and an increasing ability to recapture fracking fluids.

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But all this ignores the elephant in the room, the fact that we are injecting chemicals into the Earth without fully understanding the effect (earthquakes), the effect of the chemicals on air quality and the ozone, permanently altering our landscape with a network of roads to frack pads and leaving behind processing and storage tanks and open toxic pools.

And what about sales to foreign countries? Are we selling out on Colorado so oil and gas can profit? The Boulder County moratorium on fracking ends June 10. Time is running out!

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story